Who We Help

Service to the Local Community
A mission of all Rotary Clubs, including the Plattsburgh Sunrise Club, is service to the local community. We achieve this through direct participation in local service projects and by club fundraising with the money raised going to support the efforts of other local service organizations.

Throughout the year, the Plattsburgh Sunrise Club lends significant support to community celebrations that offer family-friendly entertainment. These include the Mayor's Cup Regatta and Festival and the Winter Carnival.

Below are some of the local projects in which the Sunrise Club has been involved:

The Max Moore Memorial Tree House, built along the Saranac River Trail near the Plattsburgh Police Department headquarters, is a universally accessible tree house, thanks to a special ramp that helps anyone, even those with mobility issues,

The tree house is named after local pediatrician Dr. Heidi Moore’s late son Max, who utilized a wheelchair and would have loved to be able to play in a tree house if he had the chance. People of all ages and abilities will enjoy this unique facility along the scenic Saranac River. The Max Moore Memorial tree house adds value to our community by giving everyone a safe place to play, fish, or simply relax and enjoy the view.

Sunrise Rotary of Plattsburgh looks for opportunities to enhance the sense of community both here and in locations far less fortunate around the globe.

Each February we host the annual Winter Carnival on the front lawn of the University of Vermont Health Network, Champlain Valley Physicians Hospital. The Winter Carnival offers the community the opportunity to enjoy free family-friendly outdoor recreation as well as indoor arts and crafts.

The Plattsburgh Sunrise Rotary Club dedicated three years of fundraising efforts through its Mayor's Club Regatta celebration to create a legacy community project — a pavilion constructed at Wilcox Dock Park on Lake Champlain, Cumberland Avenue in the City of Plattsburgh. This project was dedicated July 12, 2012.

The facility, which sits between Wilcox Dock and the City of Plattsburgh Healthy Lungs Trail, includes several picnic tables and offers scenic views of Lake Champlain.

The call to service for members of the Sunrise Rotary Club of Plattsburgh doesn't end at the borders of the local community. The humanitarian needs of the global community are too great. There are few organizations in the world who are more dedicated to helping the international community than Rotary International and its member clubs.

Through its support of the Rotary International Foundation, Sunrise Club members can contribute to international humantarian aid projects than no single club or even single nation can accomplish — the global eradication of polio for example.

But there are many international projects where the individual Sunrise Club members can make a difference. The following are just a few of those projects:

In November 2015 the Plattsburgh Sunrise Rotary Club embarked on a fundraiser for ShelterBox that has benefits that reach as far as the remote West Lunga Forest, an African miombo woodland forest preserve in the northwest region of Zambia. But the benefits won't only be felt in Africa, they will also fund another ShelterBox that will eventually be shipped to a disaster zone somewhere in the world to save a family coping with the loss of their home.

Club members will sell bottles of African Bronze Honey harvested by farmers in that region of Zambia. A portion of the cost of each bottle is set aside to train and equip more Zambians in how to harvest honey — supporting entrepreneurship and beekeeping in Africa.

The Sunrise Rotary Club of Plattsburgh has an ongoing financial commitment to the ShelterBox organization to provide aid to victims of disasters wherever they happen.

ShelterBox delivers emergency shelter and other lifesaving supplies to help families begin to rebuild their lives after losing their homes and possessions following a natural disaster or humanitarian crisis.

Each ShelterBox is custom-packed depending on the needs of those affected by the disaster but often contains a family tent, water filter, blankets, cooking and eating utensils, tools, children’s activity pack, mosquito net and other items.